The present invention relates to a construction system for shelves comprising shelves and rear panelling plates, and in which the shelves at their rear edge are insertable in upright or wall mounted consoles from which the shelves are cantilevered. The consoles are hidden behind the vertical extending rear panelling plates which are mounted horizontally spaced from the uprights or from the wall.
One of the objects of the present invention is to provide a novel construction system for shelves of the above mentioned type and in which the shelves are supported in such a way that higher loads can be applied to the shelves.
Another object is to distribute the effect of a load on one shelf to adjacent shelves and, thus, ensure that the front edges of a shelf and its adjacent shelves are mutually in line.
Another object is to provide a novel construction system for shelves in which the panelling plates do not support the shelves but are carried by the same means as support the shelves.
Another object is to provide a shelf, for a construction system for shelves, in which the shelf has a less tendency of being brought out of its plane.
In prior construction systems of which the most relevant seems to be disclosed in German Patent Publication No. 2610712, the shelves are supported partly by the rear panelling plate of the system and partly by blocks between which the inner end corners of the shelf are engaged.
In such a system the load of each shelf is multiplied by a factor of more than two before it is transferred to the rear panelling plates below. This means that each panelling plate must be able to support the added multiplied loads of all shelves above the rear panelling plate in question unless each panelling plate is not rigidly connected to the wall or the uprights.
Furthermore, each shelf is exposed for relatively high stresses in the zone of each rear shelf corner where it is in engagement with one of said blocks.
To eliminate the above drawbacks each supporting console according to the invention constitutes a profiled, horizontally mounted support rail for continuously supporting at least one shelf along its rear edge and which engages each shelf on its top side and its bottom side along rear edge zones of which the top side edge zone is closer to the rear edge of the shelf than the bottom side edge zone. Thereby no loads from the shelves will be transferred to the rear panelling plates and no relatively extreme stresses will occur at the rear corners of the shelves.
At given shelf material and dimension this results in higher loads allowable for the shelf than is the case in prior art shelves. Furthermore, the material and the thickness of the rear panelling plate are independent of the loads applied to the shelves and to the number of shelves above the panelling plate in question. Instead of carrying the load from shelves each panelling plate may be partly or entirely carried by these support rails.
The above and further objects and novel features of the present invention will be apparent from the description set forth below when read with the accompanying drawings, the latter being for the purpose of illustration only and not defining the limits of the invention, reference for this latter purpose being had to the appended claims.